how does one have faith? my own answer

[belenen]

Comments

[wlotus]

Your definition of faith makes far more sense to me than what I was told when I was growing up. I, too, had a lot of problems with just believing, especially when reality flew in the face of what I was told I should believe. While I now consider myself a disciple of Jesus Christ, I am agnostic as far as the question of God/god/"a higher power" is concerned. That may change later, but it is who I am today, and I am learning to accept that, in spite of my conditioning.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. They are helping me make more sense of my own feelings on the subject.

[belenen]

*nods* yes, indeed. I remember such an attitude of "don't seek any other voice on spirituality because it may conflict with what the church teaches" but my relationship with Jesus would not be what it is if I didn't learn from other sources. Real faith will not be destroyed by learning more!

I'm so glad it helped ♥

[kmiotutsie]

I believe in intuition ;) intuition tells me that i'll be taken care of, and intuition tells me which people in my life can be trusted and which people i'd be better off keeping all the trust-business to myself with ;) it's still possible to be friendly to those folks too, haha

[belenen]

I definitely believe in intuition too!

With the particular friend I was referring to, essentially I began to suspect that everything ze was writing about was fiction. I don't have a problem being friendly to people I can't trust but I don't want to be friends with someone who doesn't tell the truth at all.

[phoenixdreaming]

I have a sad feeling that I may know who you're talking about. Whether or not that's true, it spurred me to remove someone who's probably not coming back to LJ again. If so, that'll be the second time (here) I've been bitten by and enamoured of someone who was a lie, but an interesting enough lie that I ignored my instincts...

[kmiotutsie]

i hear ya-- that's a real drag

[queerbychoice]

I disagree that there is nothing wrong with blind faith. Blind faith is believing without asking questions, without weighing the evidence, without caring whether or not the evidence supports one's beliefs. This obviously leads to a much greater likelihood of believing falsehoods than if people asked questions, weighed evidence, and changed their minds when the evidence indicated that they should. People's beliefs influence their actions, and when people choose to cling to false beliefs, these false beliefs influence them to take actions for misguided reasons. People taking actions for misguided reasons cause practically every single evil in the entire world, including all manner of prejudice and discrimination. Blind faith is the cause of Proposition 8

[belenen]

well, I think we mean different things by 'blind' faith -- I really should have defined what I meant. I don't mean unthinkingly believing what other people tell you -- that is lazy and irresponsible, and not actual faith at all. I would call such people religious, not believing/spiritual/faith-full.

By blind faith I mean 'believing without proof' -- which I don't think is wrong at all, but I also don't think it is exclusive of questioning faith. Blind faith to me is the jumping-off point, where a person starts. My 'blind faith' belief is that God/dess is love, and I have strengthened that belief by expanding my knowledge of life. Aspects of my faith are still 'blind' in that they have no proof, but at the very base of my faith I have a foundation of facts/patterns which I have learned and observed, and I am always willing to alter my faith based on new information, so I would call my faith 'questioning.' I still believe the same core things I always have -- just, now I believe them stronger because I have more reason to.